Prostate cancer (PCa) is the leading cancer in the US and European population. At least 1-2 million men in the western hemisphere suffer from prostate cancer and it is estimated that the disease will strike one in six men between the ages of 55 and 85. There are more than 300.000 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed each year in USA. The mortality from the disease is second only to lung cancer. Currently anatomic methods, such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and ultrasound, predominate for clinical imaging of prostate cancer. An estimated $2 billion is currently spent worldwide on surgical, radiation, drug therapy and minimally invasive treatments. However, there is presently no effective therapy for relapsing, metastatic, androgen-independent prostate cancer.
A variety of experimental low molecular weight PCa imaging agents are currently being pursued clinically, including radiolabeled choline analogs [18F]fluorodihydrotestosterone ([18F]FDHT), anti-1-amino-3-[18F]fluorocyclobutyl-1-carboxylic acid (anti [18F]F-FACBC, [11C]acetate and 1-(2-deoxy-2-[18F]flouro-L-arabinofuranosyl)-5-methyluracil (-[18F]FMAU) (Scher, B.; et al. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 2007, 34, 45-53; Rinnab, L.; et al. BJU Int 2007, 100, 786, 793; Reske, S. N.; et al. J Nucl Med 2006, 47, 1249-1254; Zophel, K.; Kotzerke, J. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 2004, 31, 756-759; Vees, H.; et al. BJU Int 2007, 99, 1415-1420; Larson, S. M.; et al. J Nucl Med 2004, 45, 366-373; Schuster, D. M.; et al. J Nucl Med 2007, 48, 56-63; Tehrani, O. S.; et al. J Nucl Med 2007, 48, 1436-1441). Each operates by a different mechanism and has certain advantages, e.g., low urinary excretion for [11C]choline, and disadvantages, such as the short physical half-life of positron-emitting radionuclides.
It is well known that tumors may express unique proteins associated with their malignant phenotype or may over-express normal constituent proteins in greater number than normal cells. The expression of distinct proteins on the surface of tumor cells offers the opportunity to diagnose and characterize disease by probing the phenotypic identity and biochemical composition and activity of the tumor. Radioactive molecules that selectively bind to specific tumor cell surface proteins provide an attractive route for imaging and treating tumors under non-invasive conditions. A promising new series of low molecular weight imaging agents targets the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) (Mease R. C. et al. Clin Cancer Res. 2008, 14, 3036-3043; Foss, C. A.; et al. Clin Cancer Res 2005, 11, 4022-4028; Pomper, M. G.; et al. Mol Imaging 2002, 1, 96-101; Zhou, J.; et al. Nat Rev Drug Discov 2005, 4, 1015-1026; WO 2013/022797).
PSMA is a trans-membrane, 750 amino acid type II glycoprotein that has abundant and restricted expression on the surface of PCa, particularly in androgen-independent, advanced and metastatic disease (Schulke, N.; et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2003, 100, 12590-12595). The latter is important since almost all PCa become androgen independent over the time. PSMA possesses the criteria of a promising target for therapy, i.e., abundant and restricted (to prostate) expression at all stages of the disease, presentation at the cell surface but not shed into the circulation and association with enzymatic or signaling activity (Schulke, N.; et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2003, 100, 12590-12595). The PSMA gene is located on the short arm of chromosome 11 and functions both as a folate hydrolase and neuropeptidase. It has neuropeptidase function that is equivalent to glutamate carboxypeptidase II (GCPII), which is referred to as the “brain PSMA”, and may modulate glutamatergic transmission by cleaving N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG) to N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and glutamate (Nan, F.; et al. J Med Chem 2000, 43, 772-774). There are up to 106 PSMA molecules per cancer cell, further suggesting it as an ideal target for imaging and therapy with radionuclide-based techniques (Tasch, J.; et al. Crit Rev Immunol 2001, 21, 249-261).
The radio-immunoconjugate of the anti-PSMA monoclonal antibody (mAb) 7E11, known as the PROSTASCINT® scan, is currently being used to diagnose prostate cancer metastasis and recurrence. However, this agent tends to produce images that are challenging to interpret (Lange, P. H. PROSTASCINT scan for staging prostate cancer. Urology 2001, 57, 402-406; Haseman, M. K.; et al. Cancer Biother Radiopharm 2000, 15, 131-140; Rosenthal, S. A.; et al. Tech Urol 2001, 7, 27-37). More recently, monoclonal antibodies have been developed that bind to the extracellular domain of PSMA and have been radiolabeled and shown to accumulate in PSMA-positive prostate tumor models in animals. However, diagnosis and tumor detection using monoclonal antibodies has been limited by the low permeability of the monoclonal antibody in solid tumors.
The selective targeting of cancer cells with radiopharmaceuticals, either for imaging or therapeutic purposes is challenging. A variety of radionuclides are known to be useful for radio-imaging or cancer radiotherapy, including 111In, 90Y, 68Ga, 177Lu, 99mTc, 123I and 131I. Recently it has been shown that some compounds containing a glutamate-urea-glutamate (GUG) or a glutamate-urea-lysine (GUL) recognition element linked to a radionuclide-ligand conjugate exhibit high affinity for PSMA.
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